Dancing in the Baron's Shadow by Fabienne Josaphat Page B

the air. “If you don’t like my friends, then don’t come to my house.” His eyes bulged out of their sockets.
    â€œI won’t then!” Raymond pushed his chair back.
    Eve reached out to grab him by the arm, surely to insist that he didn’t have to leave, that Nicolas never meant what he said, that he was just overly sensitive. She couldn’t stand the way her husband treated his brother. She had grown up in a loving family before she married Nicolas, and she believed in the bond between siblings because she herself once had brothers. It was one of the things Raymond liked about her.
    â€œRaymond,” she pleaded.
    â€œLet him leave, Eve,” Nicolas said.
    Raymond didn’t wait for her to finish her sentence. He started down the hallway, but then spun around and walked back to the dining room. He didn’t know why. It was the same instinct that made him drive Milot Sauveur out of Cité Simone.
    Nicolas and Eve were still sitting there. Nicolas was chewing furiously on a toothpick, nearly stabbing his gums. Eve held her head low in her hands like she was suffering from a violent migraine. When she saw him return, she implored Raymond with her eyes.
    â€œYou know the real difference between you and me, Nicolas?” Raymond asked. “You’re an ass.”
    Eve began to protest, but he continued, unfazed.
    â€œNo, please. Let me speak my piece or I’ll choke on it tonight. Nicolas needs to hear this.” He paused and looked right at his brother at the head of the table. “Everything I do, I do for my family. I slave away out there, I sweat. Sometimes I only eat once a day. The other day, I had to syphon gas out of a car just to get my car going. My meals, my money, my blood, it’s all to keep my family alive. I always think of them first. But you, Nicolas, you don’t think about anyone but yourself.”
    Nicolas stared back, quivering with rage. Raymond sighed. Suddenly, all of this just seemed exhausting.
    â€œYou’re selfish,” he said, dropping his voice. “Look at all you have, and you’re risking losing it all.”
    â€œYou’re angry because of what I have?” Nicolas roared. “How typical.”
    â€œI’m angry because you don’t cherish it!” Raymond’s mouth filled with spit. “Any man who plays with fire like you do, dancing with the Devil, is bound to burn.” He looked at his brother knowingly. “And what will your family have left except your ashes?”
    Nicolas slammed the table with the palm of his hand and Amélie’s face twisted with fear. Eve jumped up as the baby began to cry. Her husband’s eyes glimmered like fiery lumps of coal.
    Raymond chuckled, but his laugh was tired, empty. He shook his head.
    â€œYou stupid, stubborn little man.”
    â€œGet out!”
    â€œNicolas!” Eve seized her husband’s arm. She looked to Raymond, but he had already walked away.

FIVE
    R aymond knew he wasn’t going to get much sleep that night. He lay frozen on the mattress next to Yvonne, listening to her rhythmic breathing and the creak of bedsprings each time she shifted. He stared at the dark ceiling and let starlight bathe his half-naked body, the sheets rolled down to his waist. He was used to the city heat. When Yvonne opened her eyes and found him wide-awake, she barely lifted her head off the pillow.
    â€œYou should sleep,” she said.
    There was concern in her voice. Also exhaustion. She needed sleep too, probably even more than he did. When the sun rose, she’d rush out of the house to her job laundering clothes, a job they both knew was more physically taxing than Raymond’s.
    â€œDon’t worry about me,” he whispered. “I’ll be tired soon. You go back to sleep.”
    She lay there, staring at him, until her eyes closed. He felt grateful. He didn’t want to talk to her, didn’t want to explain himself,